NPS Director Defends Aggressive Action to Shut Parks

Semi-News/Semi-Satire ^ | 18 Oct 2013 | John Semmens

Called to testify before the House Natural Resources, and Oversight and Government Reform committees, National Parks Service Director Jonathan Jarvis stood by his actions during the shutdown.
The most serious challenge to Jarvis' actions came from Representative Rob Bishop (R-Utah) who accused him of violating the Anti-deficiency Act. This Act prohibits agencies from undertaking additional work during a lapse in funding such as occurred during the recent shutdown.
Jarvis didn't deny that sending Park Rangers to barricade open air monuments and harass tourists violated this statute. “I will grant that the text of the statute would appear to prohibit the actions I authorized,” Jarvis admitted. “However, I discussed this matter with officials at the White House and Secretary Jewell. I was assured that the President's authority superseded a rigid adherence to the statutory text.”
“I was told that if we left the Mall or the World War II Memorial open they wouldn't really be shutdown,” Jarvis continued. “I mean, without the barricades how would the general public even know they were closed? Likewise, if we had allowed tourists to drive through our national parks and take photos it would have diluted the message that these places were closed. It's not enough to just passively lock the doors of the visitors' centers and think we've closed the parks if we let people take a peek from their vehicles while driving.”
An overlooked rationale for aggressively shutting down NPS sites according to Jarvis was the threat of terrorism. “If we left these sites open and unbarricaded they could've easily fallen into the hands of terrorists,” Jarvis contended. “As we saw, octogenarians were able to penetrate the perimeters we tried to establish. Imagine how much worse it could've been if, instead, al-Qaeda had chosen this occasion to seize these sites.”
In related news, President Obama created and awarded a Presidential Medal of Honor to Jarvis “for his heroic actions during the just concluded shutdown crisis. Without Director Jarvis' steadfast leadership in this time of peril unauthorized viewing of some of America's most treasured resources and sacred historic sites might have gone unopposed. In the full knowledge that he might face grievous criticism for actions many would classify as spiteful and vindictive, he did not waver from carrying out my orders.”